Hardest preparation for the 20 miles?

Our elder son Robbie decided at Christmas that he wants to run a marathon this year and it the true style of marathon under-estimation he reckons that it should be easy - if he can run a half marathon then all he needs to do to run twice the distance is go a little slower! Oh boy, how many people have made that mistake!

But I told him that if he is going to attempt it he had to do some longer runs and it would help if he could run in the 20 miles in March. Nearly three months have gone by since then with little sign of any longer runs and so I have been dreading Saturday's 20 miles, not just because of my own fear of those 40 laps, but because of fear that Robbie will go to fast and suffer.

We've spent the evening chatting about his race tactics and he is so keen to try and get under 3 hours that he has accepted all my suggestions about following sound good reliable competitors of that standard and getting his drinks at prescribed distances.

So my heading is probably a little bit over the top - listening to Robbie planning each lap for the 50th time was not really as hard as those early morning runs.

Regular visitors to the website will know that it started mainly for the publication of statistics so its great to delve into them tonight as we ease down towards those 40 laps. My task tonight was to list the fastest 50 finishes of all time and there are many stories buried within them.

But let's stick to statistics. Steve Kelly's first 6 finishes averaged 1:51:31 and it was only his solitary race around the NSC in 1996 that dropped his overall average down to 1:53:53. Shocking!

1:54:16 1982

1:49:38 1983

1:50:15 1984

1:50:09 1985

1:50:24 1986

1:54:22 1988

2:08:05 1996